


he's run off and undone you

by ifimightchime



Category: bare: A Pop Opera - Hartmere/Intrabartolo
Genre: 2004 off-Broadway canon Bare, Angst, Dead Jason McConnell, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Post-Canon, past Jason McConnell/Peter Simmonds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:00:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23358157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifimightchime/pseuds/ifimightchime
Summary: Nadia is quiet these days, and Peter's just about keeping it together.
Relationships: Nadia McConnell & Peter Simmonds
Kudos: 17
Collections: Secret Gay High School Lovers: Murphy's Law Edition





	he's run off and undone you

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: languishing  
> Title is a slightly altered line from _The Man Who Got Away_
> 
> As stated in the tags, I take characterization and backstory from the 2004 version of Bare, the one with Michael Arden and John Hill. I don't know how much that affects things given this is set a few years post-canon, but if anything feels off from other versions, that's because I'm not all that familiar with them.

Nadia is quiet these days, on the rare occasion they meet up. Peter doesn't know if that's a sign of her growing up, or a sign of how hard things are for her. Maybe it just means that she doesn't know what to do with him; maybe she's different around her new friends, still as brash and playful as she's ever been.

"How are you?" she asks after he sits down with his coffee, her eyes big and serious and trained on him for any hint of a lie.

How is he? Not as well as he was last time they did this, but not as bad as that first year. He doesn't cry most days, but he's having dreams again. He dropped a class because they were studying Romeo and Juliet. The therapist he finally agreed to see tells him it's to be expected, that healing takes time.

"Okay, I guess," he says, and dredges up a smile to try and prove it. "How are you?"

Nadia only pauses a second before she says, "Mostly okay." He wonders what she's hiding behind that pause, behind her smile. He wonders what else they're going to say this time.

They don't talk about Jason, but it's what hangs over all their uncertain conversations. Maybe it'd be easier for them both to move on if they let go of each other; he doesn't keep in touch with anyone else from St. Cecilia's anymore, even people he used to think were friends, but he was always closer to Nadia than most of the others. He thought things would be better by now, that keeping somebody who understood in his life might help, but Ivy disappeared, and Nadia's quiet, and Peter's still so deep in mourning for a boy three years dead that some days he wishes he'd joined him.

He doesn't think he could bear to let go of her, though, no matter how awkward these infrequent meetings are, how much it hurts sometimes to see her face. Maybe that will change, eventually. Maybe one day he won't have time to meet her when she asks, maybe he won't think to ask himself, and maybe that day he'll really be over it.

He's just not sure yet if that day will come.


End file.
